MARC POSTMAN

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Marc Postman

Head, Community Missions Office

As the head of the community missions office, Dr. Marc Postman provides science operations support for a number of ground- and space-based observatories that are led by independent astronomical groups in partnership with the institute. His team identifies and supports initiatives involving advanced observatory scheduling and data processing systems, front-rank data archive facilities, and astronomy outreach programs to enable the rapid dissemination of scientific knowledge to the astronomical community and the public. His team also plays a key role in pioneering advanced space telescope concepts for future missions.

Throughout his career as an astronomer, Dr. Postman has participated in and led several important projects. He was the principal investigator of Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH), a 525-orbit multi-cycle program that used the gravitational lensing power of 25 massive galaxy clusters to study dark matter, dark energy, and the properties of galaxies in the early universe. He led the Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST), and, after serving on the initial science definition team for the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), now serves on its formulation science working group. He is also a member of the NASA science and technology definition team that will assess the scientific capabilities of and technology required for the Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor (LUVOIR).

Earlier in his career, Dr. Postman served the institute as the Hubble archive branch chief, a member of the Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) investigation definition team, the lead project scientist for the Digitized Sky Survey Image Compression Program, and an archive scientist who led the catalogs and surveys branch. He launched his career as a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University in New Jersey.

Dr. Postman maintains active research, which frequently addresses key questions about the formation and evolution of structure in the universe. He has published more than 170 peer-reviewed articles, which have appeared in the Astronomical Journal, the Astrophysical Journal, the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and Astrophysics and Space Science Library journals. He has also presented at the American Astronomical Society Meeting, the IAU (International Astronomical Union) Symposia, and the SPIE Conference, the international society for optics and photonics. He has used a wide range of telescopes on the ground and in space, covering the electromagnetic spectrum from radio and infrared to ultraviolet and X-rays.

Education

PhD in Astronomy, Harvard University
SB in Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology